There’s a ghost in house – family.
Is there really a ghost at 1 Kirkstead-crescent, Nunsthorpe, Grimsby? “Yes,” said the tenant, 37-years-old lumper Mr Robert Eddington. He declared: “I have seen it several times. It seems to wander about up and down the stairs.” His housekeeper, Mrs O. Wild, her son John (8), and Mr Eddington’s children Jeanette (14), Robert (10), and five-years-old Michael are all equally convinced. Mr Eddington said: “They are terrified of it. Robert was so scared he ran away from home and is now living with his mother in Pelham-street. I have not the heart to make him come back – not until we have another house.”
The Vicar of Grimsby, Canon G.W. Markham, and the chairman of the Housing Committee, Ald. M. Larmour, went on a late-night tour of the house at the weekend. An Evening Telegraph reporter was with them. Afterwards, Ald. Larmour, who did not bump into a ghost, commented: “I am keeping an open mind on this. The council is no wicked landlord, but I must make sure of all the facts before I recommend my committee to do anything. If we granted every transfer request, the situation would be ridiculous.” Ald. Larmour pointed out that already the council had offered Mr Eddington alternative accommodation, but he had turned it down. Mr Eddington replied: “We would have lost by the move. The house was not nearly as good as this one.”
Neither was Canon Markham convinced of the presence of the supernatural. “As far as I can see, it is a perfectly normal house,” he remarked. He said he had visited the house three times to try to help. On one occasion, members of the family said that they could see the ghost at that moment, with accompanying sounds and smell. “But I must confess I could neither see, hear, nor smell anything of a ghost,” he went on.
Mrs Wild declared: “I felt there was something strange the first day here. It is an unhappy house. There is an earthy smell about the place, as if from the grave.” Mrs Wild said she had experienced nothing like it before. “But I do believe I have a sixth sense,” she added. What does the ghost look like? “It is a shadowy figure, slightly bigger than I am,” Mr Eddington claimed. He saw it once through the doorway as he lay on the settee and several times he has seen it on the stairs. So far, he said, the unwelcome guest has done no harm – “apart from unnerving us all. It seems restless, as if it wants peace.”
Jeanette claimed to have been nearest the ghost. “A cold hand touched my face in the night,” she said. Poppycock? Maybe… but others who have visited the house also report experiencing psychic phenomena.
Grimsby Daily Telegraph, 25th May 1959.
Family may quit ‘ghost’ house.
Mr Robert Eddington, the 42-years-old fish worker, who complains that a ghost is haunting his council house, 1, Kirkstead-crescent, Grimsby, is shortly to have the opportunity of moving. The Grimsby Housing Sub-committee decided last night to give Mr Eddington the opportunity of taking over a house which will be vacated shortly. But the committee is not convinced of the existence of the ghost.
The chairman, Ald. M. Larmour, said today: “We are doing this only for the sake of Mr Eddington’s four children. We have absolutely no evidence of anything supernatural, but we think the children might have been affected by all the attention this has aroused.” The committee will have no difficulty in re-letting the house if Mr Eddington moves. Many people have offered to take it, ‘ghost or no ghost’.
Grimsby Daily Telegraph, 19th June 1959.
Ghost on stairs convinces inspector.
N.S.P.C.C. Inspector Bill Beckett went to “talk sense” to a family frightened by a ghost and ended up, he says, by seeing “things” himself. He was called to the house in Kirkstead Crescent, Grimsby, after complaints that Robert Eddington was being cruel to his daughter, Janet, 14, and her two younger brothers by frightening them with spooky stories. Yesterday, he advised Janet, who had already fled in terror, to stay with friends and extracted a promise from the local housing departement that the Eddingtons should get the first suitable vacancy. Said Inspector Beckett: “I’m 35, and I flatter myself that I’m a level-headed chap.”
“‘There,’ said Mr Eddington to me, ‘is the chair from where most people see the ghost.’ ‘Nonsense, man,’ I replied. ‘This house is perfectly normal.’ Then, quite clearly, I saw a dark shadow come down the stairs. I saw it for five or six seconds till it receded. I don’t believe in ghosts and in the cold light of day, I don’t believe I saw one. But I certainly saw something for which I could find no explanation. It gave me quite a turn, as you can imagine. I raced upstairs, but I found all the door shut, and nothing that could have caused a moving shadow.”
Mr Eddington’s two sons, Robert, ten, and George, six, have both seen the black shadow. “But it seems most active when Janet is about,” said Mr Eddington.
His housekeeper, Mrs Wilde – the Eddingtons are separated – has heard mysterious thumpings and bangings as well. This, too, was confirmed by Insp. Beckett. “I heard knockings while I was there, but found no one,” he said. “One thing is certain: the children must leave the house as soon as possible. It is endangering their welfare; they are terrified. That’s why I went to the housing department.”
The People, 21st June 1959.
Ghost house is empty.
A family who have been terror stricken by a ghost have left their haunted house in Kirkstead Crescent, Grimsby. When Mr Robert Eddington first claimed his ten-year-old council house was haunted, no one believed him. But after an NSPCC inspector and 40 other people had seen a ghost there the Eddington family were offered a n ew home on the Broadway estate, Grimsby. Although the house is reputedly haunted the Grimsby housing committee have announced that large numbers of people have already applied for the tenancy.
Epworth Bells, Crowle and Isle of Axholme Messenger, 3rd July 1959.